‘Golden age’ of infrastructure under Duterte: budget chief

MANILA – President Rodrigo Duterte will ramp up spending to build more roads, rails and bridges in what is hoped to be a “golden age” of infrastructure, Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno said on Wednesday.

Duterte plans to spend up to P900 billion on infrastructure in 2017 and raise infrastructure spending to as much as 7 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) within his term, Diokno told the Financial Executives Institute of the Philippines (FINEX).

“The next six years will be the golden age of infrastructure,” Diokno said.

Projects will be rolled out in all regions “simultaneously and not sequentially,” he said, adding that public infrastructure have been “neglected for too long” under past governments.

Duterte will seek a P3.35 trillion budget next year, 11.6 percent higher than the 2016 budget.